First off, when someone tells you that they're taking a figure on good authority, and your comeback is "being an evolutionist, you would", you imply that they're doing so not because it's rational or because it makes sense, but because they're both 'evolutionists'. That is nothing more than a way to pretentiously dismiss someone's statement without being able to disprove it.

Second, I never said nor suggested that there was anything 'selective' about any of those events, or that all human precursors simply died out because of stuff like that. Those events undoubtedly affected our direct predecessors as well as the offshoots. The difference is that our predecessors were less vulnerable to those events for various reasons.

For example, Neanderthals required 2-3 times as many calories as our predecessors. So we'll say the amount of food required to feed two Neanderthals would feed five of our predecessors. That means, in effect, that our predecessors could become much more numerous with the same amount of food. A higher population gives a buffer against extinction for various reasons, not the least of which is a resistance to genetic driftWiki. If a population gets too small (say, due to a single catastrophic event), inbreeding and mutations will result in a significantly less diverse population, which is then more vulnerable to dying out where a larger population would not be.

For example, let's say there was a group of predecessor humans and a group of Neanderthals, in the 5-2 ratio I mentioned above. And that there was a really bad year, where a big percentage of each group died off (lack of food, natural disasters, disease outbreak, take your pick). As a result, the Neanderthals dropped below a sufficient number of individuals to maintain a stable breeding pool, while the predecessor humans did not. With genetic drift setting in, Neanderthals suffer additional losses from the increased vulnerability to deleterious mutations and drop to an even lower number before their population stabilizes. As a result, there's more food available for the predecessor humans, who increase their population due to abundance.

As a result, the predecessor humans have a crushing inter-species advantage. They have many more people to go out hunting and so get most of the food. So the Neanderthals are now getting starved out, and have no choice but to move. Except they're moving to an area which they aren't familiar with, so they have trouble finding enough food (don't know how the weather works, don't know the habits of prey animals, don't know what predators to watch out for, etc). As a result, their population drops still further before they figure things out.

Meanwhile, the predecessor humans have pretty much filled up the original habitat, and now due to too many people and not enough food, they have to start spreading out. Some of them move to the Neanderthals' new habitat and suffer the same learning curve, and perhaps the Neanderthals have an initial advantage. But the old habitat continues to produce a surplus of predecessor humans, who continue moving there, and eventually the predecessor humans get the advantage and force the Neanderthals out again. As a result, the Neanderthals are always on the edge of starvation, while the predecessor humans are secure. All it takes is one big disaster, and the Neanderthals go extinct.

The point is that it wasn't any one given event which caused the extinction of the Neanderthals (and other precursors). It was the combination of circumstances that did it. If things had gone another way, and the predecessor humans had gotten the worst of things (say a disease that affected them but not Neanderthals so much), then it could easily have gone the opposite way.

whatch, do you know how fossils are made? It seems not with your evident ignorance about the subject.

I think rapid burial. I am ignorant about the subject.

So, WHY do you think you can claim you know anything about it? It's like me saying i know what's wrong with a diesel engine without having a clue how one works.

Rapid burial is only *one* way thing are on their way to be come fossils. Read the links you've been given. I'm guessing you won't because so many theists are too happy in their stupidity. They are cowards when it comes to actually learning soemthign that might challenge their special snowflake status.

I have have a degree in geology. If you learn something, it will make sense to you. To attack something you have no idea about, like the geological column, is more than a little silly. And the geological column does not "jump from one animal to the next". I have no idea what you are talking about here but it certainly isn't the geological column: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/geocolumn/

I was referring to the animal fossils embedded within the column, which is how rocks are dated, or do the rocks date the fossils?[/quote]So, you make ignorant assumptions and then more ignorant claims. Why should anyone care what you think if you can't be bothered to actually learn anything? You just spew nonsense and then hope no one will notice your failures. How pathetically deceitful.

The way rocks are dated are many and not used alone, again your ignorance is revealed and your baseless claims are shown for the lies they are. Fossils determine sequence not exact age, simple to complex. And again, since you haven't a clue about how fossils are formed, only lies from creationists, your assumptions are wrong.

« Last Edit: November 01, 2011, 09:59:23 AM by velkyn »

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"There is no use in arguing with a man who can multiply anything by the square root of minus 1" - Pirates of Venus, ERB

Fossilization is an exceptionally rare occurrence, because most components of formerly living things tend to decompose relatively quickly following death. In order for an organism to be fossilized, the remains normally need to be covered by sediment as soon as possible. However there are exceptions to this, such as if an organism becomes frozen, desiccated, or comes to rest in an anoxic (oxygen-free) environment. There are several different types of fossils and fossilization processes.

Due to the combined effect of taphonomic processes and simple mathematical chance, fossilization tends to favor organisms with hard body parts, those that were widespread, and those that existed for a long time before going extinct. On the other hand, it is very unusual to find fossils of small, soft bodied, geographically restricted and geologically ephemeral organisms, because of their relative rarity and low likelihood of preservation.

Larger specimens (macrofossils) are more often observed, dug up and displayed, although microscopic remains (microfossils) are actually far more common in the fossil record.

Some casual observers have been perplexed by the rarity of transitional species within the fossil record. The conventional explanation for this rarity was given by Darwin, who stated that "the extreme imperfection of the geological record," combined with the short duration and narrow geographical range of transitional species, made it unlikely that many such fossils would be found. Simply put, the conditions under which fossilization takes place are quite rare; and it is highly unlikely that any given organism will leave behind a fossil. Eldredge and Gould developed their theory of punctuated equilibrium in part to explain the pattern of stasis and sudden appearance in the fossil record. Furthermore, in the strictest sense, nearly all fossils are "transitional," due to the improbability that any given fossil represents the absolute termination of an evolutionary path.

I'll grant that it's bad to rely entirely on Wikipedia, but it's always (well, usually) a good place to start. If you have more specific questions, just ask... Which I must say; is something you seem to be doing a lot of in this thread. Even if you're asking from a skewed perspective, it's nice to have someone actually asking instead of telling us what we think, being told they're wrong, and continuing to tell us that's what we think anyway.

But uh... yeah... the main thing about fossilization rarity is how quickly things degrade in most of the environments they'd have been in in the first place.

EDIT: I note in other threads your... dislike... of wikipedia, but I defend it simply with the fact that it is usually pretty good at providing a base-level knowledge slightly above an enthusiastic laymen on most subjects, with ample sources that you can delve into to get to the core of the subject. Still, there are people on these boards who actually work in the relevant field, so it would have been better to just ask.

« Last Edit: November 01, 2011, 11:42:30 AM by Avatar Of Belial »

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"You play make-believe every day of your life, and yet you have no concept of 'imagination'."I do not have "faith" in science. I have expectations of science. "Faith" in something is an unfounded assertion, whereas reasonable expectations require a precedent.

The vast, vast majority of fossils are simply the excreted calcite skeletons/shells of marine life. Like corals, etc. They get preserved because the mineral they're made of (calcite) is fairly stable already, and because underwater environments are more prone to accumulate sediment (or other overlying shell material/coral, etc.). Bones don't usually have that advantage, so they're rare.

There are no fossils "missing" from the record. Most organisms never get fossilized in the first place. The many fossils we have found are like clues in a CSI episode. We can fill in the blanks pretty well when the evidence is good enough-- we don't have to see the crime to put it all together. And we don't need a time machine to put together the story of earth's past.

Why do these people believe that forensic science is accurate most of the time, but not evolution, which is just extending the CSI further back?

ev·o·lu·tion·istnoun 1.a person who believes in or supports a theory of evolution, especially in biology.2.a person who supports a policy of gradual growth or development rather than sudden change or expansion.[/quote]

The fossil record shows species progressively transitioning from one species to several others over millions of years, confirmed by comparative anatomy and radiometric dating. Evolution from one species of bacteria to another has been observed in the lab. The evidence goes on and on.

One species of bacteria to another.....radiometric dating.....blah blah blah....Truthfully? What does the fossil record show? What does radiometric dating prove? What does one bacteria to another show? Do you really want to know, do you want your head removed from your ass? Why am I wasting my time?

If you have an argument to present against evolution, or the fact that 99% of species that ever existed have gone extinct, by all means do so. I have evidence on my side, what have you got? Bring it on.

Your "proof" that 99% of "species" that ever lived have gone extinct is based on the assumption that the earth is "billions of years old" and nothing else.

Science has proven by DNA the mutation from ape to man is impossible. Give it up.

No....it hasn't. Not in the least.

Humans have 46 chromosones while apes possess 48. This would indicate that the two species are not related unless two of the ape chromosones had fused at some point along the evolutionary path.

Not conincidentally, when scientists finally mapped out the genomes of both humans and apes, we found that when you take human chromosone #2 and match it to two of the chromosones found in other apes that the heads of the #2 chromosone match up neatly with two of the ape chromosones. Meaning that indeed, two of the ape chromosones have fused together at a point in our development. So yes, our DNA does match up to that of apes.

ev·o·lu·tion·istnoun 1.a person who believes in or supports a theory of evolution, especially in biology.2.a person who supports a policy of gradual growth or development rather than sudden change or expansion.

Oh, well done.[/sarcasm]

Come on, seriously, citing a dictionary definition to try to 'prove' that evolution is a 'belief' like you get from a religion doesn't show anything because it's splitting hairs.

Quote from: whatchamean?

Your idea that mankind evolved from a lower life form is nothing but faith.

Incorrect. And your saying so is nothing but an attempt to equate a scientific theory with a religious belief.

Quote from: whatchamean?

Overwhelming? Name one fact that proves mankind is the product of evolution.

The fact that we can test medicines on animals in order to get an idea of how those medicines would work on humans. If there were no genetic relationship between animals and humans (ala, humans weren't ultimately descended from animals), then medical testing would be worthless.

Quote from: whatchamean?

Science has proven by DNA the mutation from ape to man is impossible. Give it up.

Prove it, because I think you're just pulling this so-called 'proof' from thin air.

Quote from: whatchamean?

One species of bacteria to another.....radiometric dating.....blah blah blah....Truthfully? What does the fossil record show? What does radiometric dating prove? What does one bacteria to another show? Do you really want to know, do you want your head removed from your ass? Why am I wasting my time?

When the facts aren't on your side, attack your opponent, huh? And the fact that you're resorting to characterizing his statements as "blah blah blah" shows that you wouldn't be willing to listen even if people gave compelling answers to those questions, if you even meant them seriously.

Quote from: whatchamean?

The evidence shows creation, not evolution.

Science is about evaluating the evidence in order to come up with an explanation. Positing 'creation' as an answer to the question of how humans came to be is an excuse, not an explanation.

Quote from: whatchamean?

Forget what you've been told and learn the beginning. The evidence supports creation, not evolution.

The 'beginning', from a book that was never even conceived of until many thousands of years after humans started walking the earth? The 'beginning' that completely fails if you try to treat it as statement of literal fact? And it isn't what plethora, or I, or others have been 'told', as if we don't have working minds. It's what we've learned and evaluated through independent examination of the evidence. It isn't doctrine or dogma.

Quote from: whatchamean?

Testimony is the only proof you'll ever have. All the rest cannot be "proved."

Even on those grounds, the Bible fails, because its testimony is highly unreliable and heavily modified. And while it is true that you can't ever prove anything beyond any possible doubt, that doesn't mean you can't prove it past a standard of reasonable certainty. Even then, you can't make the claim that the only 'proof' is testimony, because testimony isn't proof in any case. We have testimony from ancient peoples who didn't know any better that the Sun goes around the Earth, like the Moon does, but that isn't proof of anything.

Quote from: whatchamean?

Your "proof" that 99% of "species" that ever lived have gone extinct is based on the assumption that the earth is "billions of years old" and nothing else.

You do realize that there's actual evidence to back up the statement of the earth being much older than a few thousand years (as many proponents of the Bible claim), right? Radiometric dating absolutely shatters the idea of it being that young, and strongly supports those billions of years that you deride as an 'assumption'. And while you may not have explicitly said that the Earth was only a few thousand years old, it is extremely obvious that you're implying it, because even a timeframe of hundreds of millions of years would still result in far more extinct species than living ones.

I have to ask, are you willing to consider that you might be wrong in what you believe?

I throw in my hat with the inter-breeding. People will f*** anything, and neanderthals were people, too.

And at the time, human and neanderthal neighbors probably took brides and/or raped each other over a long enough period that the differences between them became subtle.

I'm sure a young, healthy, fertile neanderthal woman would get a boner from most modern men, just as a similarly fertile healthy, modern woman would get a boner from a neanderthal man. Yeah, if the genome was 'different' enough, you'd have some 'problems', but nothing sheer persistence wouldn't 'solve'.

They weren't exactly simian, or anything.

Clean 'em up, give 'em a shave and a haircut, and some of the reconstructions look more human than 'Jersey Shore' people.

Why do these people believe that forensic science is accurate most of the time, but not evolution, which is just extending the CSI further back?

It's because CSI doesn't mix up suspects with monkeys.

Why don't they? The reason CSI does not mix up human suspects with monkeys is because, by applying the theory of evolution, we know that humans have different DNA than monkeys. So you do accept the application of the TOE in the specific case of solving crimes, you just don't want to accept it in general.

If you did not actually see the crime committed, how would you know it was a human who fired the gun and not a trained monkey or some other person? How could you ever be absolutely sure that you have the right criminal? A CSI expert does not have to observe the actual crime in real time to figure out what most likely happened.

If a weapon has a certain person's sweat, ie DNA on it, we can assume that person handled that weapon. Right? And if that person handled the weapon, it is more likely that person committed the murder than if their DNA was not on the weapon. Right?

If someone who looks similar to that same person was picked up on a security camera entering the premises before the time of the murder, we have more evidence--still without having to see the person do the crime--than if that person was never near the area.

If in addition to DNA on the weapon we find the person's hairs on the victim's clothing and some of that person's skin cells under the victim's fingernails[1], well, that is still not proof of guilt. And we can establish that there was a motive for the person to committ the murder, but we still don't have absolute proof.

Even eyewitness identification and a confession are not absolute proof--witnesses make mistakes or lie and innocent people confess to things for weird reasons. But that person is way more likely to be the murderer than a random person (or monkey) walking down the street in a different city altogether. And most of us have enough certainty in the validity of the process that we are willing to put people in jail or even execute them based on it. We can now go back decades, re-evaluate evidence and solve long-ago past crimes using new CSI techniques.

So, are you willing to accept that you can reconstruct past events by looking at evidence in the present? It is not miraculous-- and you never get absolute 100% proof. It is just putting together a story about what is the most likely past event based on what we can observe now.

That is what physical anthropologists and paleontologists do. Exactly the same thing as CSI--in fact, forensic anthropologists are the folks who can tell you whether that handful of bone fragments buried in the garden are those of a human child's foot, a monkey's foot, or a dog's paw. Due to evolution, the bones superficially look the same. An expert can tell them apart.

The TOE can mean the difference between no crime at all (your dog died and you buried him in the yard); a charge of animal abuse (you had an illegal exotic pet and mistreated it, earning a fine and community service); or a charge of murdering the neighbor's ten year old boy (life in prison or execution).

This is pretty important stuff-- way more important than whether it shows the bible creation story to be wrong or not. Good thing the Theory of Evolution is so well documented and trustworthy.

I have to ask, are you willing to consider that you might be wrong in what you believe?

Sure, are you? Tell you what J. Forget about the Bible. Forget about the idea of existence of any God. Forget about the theory of evolution. Forget you ever heard about God and science. Now, look at the evidence of fossils without having to be told what it means. What do you see?

Sure, are you? Tell you what J. Forget about the Bible. Forget about the idea of existence of any God. Forget about the theory of evolution. Forget you ever heard about God and science. Now, look at the evidence of fossils without having to be told what it means. What do you see?

So what, pretend I'm completely ignorant about science and then try to imagine up an explanation for fossils? Why, I'd go to someone who had studied them and ask them to explain it to me, instead of assuming that I could even guess at what they were.

If I'm someone who doesn't have a preexisting opinion about evolution, and doesn't have a preexisting opinion about a Biblical creation scenario either (I never heard of either before in my life), and I have them both presented to me at the same time and am asked to pick which one I think is correct based on the fossil record, I'm going to go with the explanation which fits the facts better. And in this case, that's evolution, since among many other things, the Bible posits a world that is mere thousands of years old, and doesn't have a good explanation for the existence of bones that have mineralized into rock.

^^^^^I would see what the observers of the past 150 years before me saw, once people stopped using really old books of fairy tales as reference points:

1. That the fossils are in layers of hardened sedimentary rock, and the arrangement is the same everywhere in the world. 2. As I excavate deeper, the fossils become older and the organisms more simple in structure. 3. I never find the more complex organisms below the simpler ones. 4. The order never varies, simpler versions of the animal or plant predate the more complex.5. Mammals appear more recently than fish, reptiles and birds. There are mammals that live in water enviroments like fish, and some that fly like birds.6. Many, many fossilized plants and animals are not represented by any currently living examples, implying that there has been an awful lot of extinction. 7. Looking at how old the rocks are, based on how long it takes for sedimentary rock to form[1] , I can assume that the extinct organisms lived a very,very long time ago.8. Similar organisms are found in similar physical environments, implying that there is a relationship between the kind of plant or animal and the environment.9. As I look at more and more fossilized remains, I can tell what kind of animal it was from fewer fragments. For example, certain size teeth in pointy shapes are found in certain size skulls and not in others. Pointy teeth are found in animals that needed to tear stuff like meat. Flatter teeth are found in animals that grind plants and grains. Bigger skulls mean bigger brains and that means probalby smarter more complex animals. And so on.10. If I have a few finger bones, a leg bone, a jaw bone with some teeth in it and some parts of the skull, I can get a pretty good idea of what the whole animal looked like, what it ate, how big it was and what kind of environment it lived in.

And I can build up my knowledge from there. No need for a science book or a religious book. Just my own observations and some ability to put questions and answers together. Sooner or later I or someone buliding on what I have found will put together a theory that explains all the stuff I have found. Then I can test the theory to see if it can predict where and what kind of fossil I will find next and where.

As I test and refine, the theory becomes more accurate. I can refine it and make it stronger. Finally I have an explanation that incorprates all the information I have and even accurately predicts what I will find in the future. I will get the Nobel Prize and become famous. My theory will be applied in all kinds of fields and will even spawn new fields of study that I could not even imagine. Every scientist studies my theory and performs experiments that improve it. Everyone says "Of course! It is so obvious-- why didn't I think of that?"

And a century later, some guy on a website who uses applications of my theory every day of his life, will say he does not believe it because he read some really old book of fairy tales.

Sure, are you? Tell you what J. Forget about the Bible. Forget about the idea of existence of any God. Forget about the theory of evolution. Forget you ever heard about God and science. Now, look at the evidence of fossils without having to be told what it means. What do you see?

this is quite funny coming from someone who has repeatedly demonstrated that he knows nothing about fossils, how they are made, the theory of evolution at all.

Now, when we look at fossils, we see that complexity increases over time. Now what does this tell you, whatcha?

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"There is no use in arguing with a man who can multiply anything by the square root of minus 1" - Pirates of Venus, ERB

At first I found this topic intriguing. It was a fresh sight to see an apparent theist taking a Socratic approach to their knowledge. It seemed genuine, but I remained skeptical by the implications of the questions and how they were presented. By page 3 I was actually preparing a pointed response to many of the questions being posed in the hopes that my layman interpretation might facilitate some understanding... and then we hit page 4. Woe is page 4 wherein all pretenses of honest inquiry is completely abandoned and the drivel emerges.

I can't believe I wasted so much of my life reading this.

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"Our fathers were our models for God. If our fathers bailed, what does that tell you about God? You have to consider the possibility that God does not like you. He never wanted you. In all probability, he hates you. This is not the worst thing that can happen."

this is quite funny coming from someone who has repeatedly demonstrated that he knows nothing about fossils, how they are made, the theory of evolution at all.

Now, when we look at fossils, we see that complexity increases over time. Now what does this tell you, whatcha?

It tells me you've decided to believe everything you read, see or hear without doing much leg work.

Your belief: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_cetaceans

The truth of the matter:

(I removed the video link to make the post smaller)wow. what a liar you are. I am glad to see one more Christian evidently damning themselves to their hell from their ignoring of their god's laws.

No, dear lying Christian, I do not accept claims without thought. I know paleontology quite well. And I know the evidence and how it is interpreted. Talk Origins does a nice job with debunking the lies in your video. I suggest you do a little reading. it's so cute when people like Dr. Werner, one more creationist who has no background I can find in the pertinent sciences, make such pathetic video full of such easily shown lies. You posting this as "evidenec" is rather like taking your sick child to a mechanic when you should be taking them to a pediatrician. You see, whatcha, I do accept the research of people who have done research and have earned my trust by having their research open to peer review. Science works on the concept of allowing other people to challenge dogma and moving beyond it.

Now for your video by Dr. Carl Werner, a medical doctor, who created this video for Christian homeschoolers it seems). We have appeals to authority, these mysterious “scientists who oppose evolution”. And who are they? We never find out as is common with baseless appeals to authority that creationists so love to use. We have the usual creationist stupidity of only addressing Darwin. Gee, funny how we’ve had over a century of research since Darwin first stated his idea. And ooooh, the video goes through the various different ideas of where whales come from and is "shocked! schocked!" that scienetist disagree on what the original beastie was. Yep, whatcha, scientists disagree on the original creature but they *don’t* disagree on the fact that whales evolved from a land mammal. Ambulocetus may be part of the line or might not be but again, this shows nothing against the reality of evolutionary theory. We might be missing a fossil and if you actually knew anything about those, you'd know that fossils are rare by their nature.

Changes in order or in what animal was the progenitor does not demonstrate or support that paleontologists are backing away from how evolution works, which is what this pathetic video is trying to claim. Again, creationists fail so pathetically in their attempts to lie about such things when they are so easy to disprove. And, oh even better, Dr. Duane Gish, from the ICR, hasn’t seen a “walking whale” or a “pig that flies”. Golly, Dr. Gish (yet one more “creationist” who hasn’t a background in any pertinent field, being a biochemist focused on human medicine), if you understood evolutionary theory, you’d know why you haven’t. Then we get more oooh moments when the video tries to intimate a consipiracy that there aren’t any fluke bits on one fossil. Again, we see how creationists ignore how fossil remains are interpreted, using the same science as forensics, which of course they have no problems with. You don’t see many creationists protesting criminal investigations that succeed when using the same science to do reconstructions of the dead. A lovely example of the pure hypocrisy of the creationist.

Werner is a creationist often noted one for claiming that “living fossils” are somehow evidence for creationism. This demonstrates that Dr. Werner doesn’t understand the most basic things about evolutionary theory and that’s simply sad. Evolutionary theory never says that organisms can’t stay the same and that’s what he’s trying to claim it does. Evolution is when organisms are altered by pressures from the environment. No pressure to chance, no evolution. Again, we see a creationist being willfully ignorant of the very thing that they try to attack and demonstrating that they have no problem lying for their religion.

Keep going, whatcha. I’m enjoying this immensely.

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"There is no use in arguing with a man who can multiply anything by the square root of minus 1" - Pirates of Venus, ERB

whatchamean: I have to congratulate you. It's evident that you're a cut above the average creationist, who can't pretend that they might be wrong about what they already believe to be true for even a few moments. And the fact that you can at least ask questions instead of just insisting that your dogma must be correct is a sign of the willingness to think and to consider, which many creationists cannot do.

But your so-called "truth of the matter" is, frankly, not convincing, and engages in fallacious reasoning. The video you linked goes to some effort to try to cast doubt on the idea of whale evolution, but it does not do a very good job of it. For example, the narrator asks the question of why biologists are confident that whales evolved from land animals if they cannot agree on what particular land animal the whales might have evolved from. It is clear that the narrator intended to give the impression that if biologists could not even agree on what land animal whales might have evolved from, then the conclusion was not trustworthy. Except this is flat-out wrong. Science is not some monolithic dogma which every scientist must march in lockstep with; the fact that scientists can and do disagree on things helps keep the whole discipline of science healthy, instead of getting stratified and locked into place.

The clip of Dr. Gish commenting that he didn't know why biologists would call "that thing" a whale, because he has never seen a walking whale, is arguably the weakest point of the video. Of course whales do not walk - today. But for him or anyone to imply that because whales do not walk today, they thus their long-dead precursors never have walked at any time in the past, is a combination of arrogance and ignorance that is hard to top. And then he states that biologists 'believe' it[1] because they want to believe it; meaning all those biologists are 'wrong' not because Dr. Gish demonstrated that it couldn't be a link in the chain, but because Dr. Gish says they're wrong.

So, after 'disproving' Ambulocetus (or rather, by showing that some scientists disagree that it was a direct precursor to modern whales), it goes on to show the 'discovery' by the film's producer that parts of the Rodhocetus fossil were missing, and gives a clip of Dr. Gingerich admitting that he didn't have the complete fossil and was speculating (which is first cut off by the narrator, then when he continues a bit later, displays an obvious edit). What a coup that must have been, to have a scientist admit to speculation on camera. Except that means nothing. Some of paleontology is necessarily speculation, to reconstruct incomplete skeletons and to try to put together a picture of a complete organism from just the bones. Sometimes that ends up in an incorrect assumption or guess. The point is not that Dr. Gingerich guessed on some details, it is that he was willing to go back and revise his speculations instead of dogmatically insisting that his original ideas had to be right.

Then the video goes on to make the claim that if the chart of whale evolution were to be redrawn to "eliminate inconsistencies", that there would be nothing left of it. This is presumably intended to show the presumed lack of evidence for whale evolution. What it actually shows is that the 'redrawing' is nothing more than an attempt to lawyer-out the actual evidence along the lines of, "this is a whale, these other things are clearly not, now that we've established that, go do something productive". That is not how science works. Science is about investigating things, not about dismissing them because they're not conclusive. If they're not conclusive, then the correct response is to look for more information, not to conclude that the whole idea is wrong.

Finally, the video concludes by trying to show that a four-legged land animal turning into a whale by natural selection (although it calls it "accidental change") is preposterous, by saying that there were too many changes for it to have happened by chance. This makes the usual mistake of assuming natural selection is random and accidental, when it is not. We can see evidence of this by looking at various different groups of humans, such as Eskimos who have developed thicker and better-distributed subcutaneous layers of fat to help protect them against the cold temperatures they live in. There is no 'accident' involved in a group, which lives in an area that is cold year-round, developing a trait that helps them resist the cold far better than someone who does not live there. Something like the evolution of land animals to whales is simply a longer stepwise process in which 'accident' plays little part. So the video's argument that all of the changes would have had to happen by accident is simply wrong.

The 'examples' the video gave to show the 'probability' of such changes happening by accident are no more accurate. They rely on very common misconceptions about how probability works, such as the idea that something has to happen all at once rather than happening over time. And the last sentence, that the "improbable odds" of evolution occurring through accidental changes has led "some scientists" to question the theory of evolution, is deceptive. It suggests that these scientists have been 'convinced' that evolution is flawed because of "improbable odds", which relies on the idea of evolution only happening by accident. As I explained just a moment ago, natural selection, the mechanism for evolution, is not dependent on "happy accidents". It can incorporate beneficial mutations, but it certainly does not rely on them. This is such a basic tenet of actual evolutionary theory that I question whether someone who tries to say that it is instead accidental even knows what they're talking about.

In short, the video might have been convincing to people who did not know any better, since it did present itself reasonably. But it depended not upon presenting actual facts to consider, but upon sowing seeds of doubt and trying to overturn established ideas without presenting anything substantial in its place.

That video was intentionally misleading, deceptive, obviously edited to eliminate scientific explanation, arrogant, willfully ignorant, intentionally confusing, fucking narcissistic and agonizing to watch. Scientists who do not support evolution??! THERE AREN'T ANY! "Creation Researchers" ARE NOT SCIENTISTS. Talk about blowing smoke up their own asses. It made me sick at my stomach. I agree with Velkyn that it's propaganda for homeschooling.

He admitted falsifying the fossil evidence...along with later finding the fossils arms....which then led him to finally conclude that the fossil had nothing to whales.

Do you not know the difference between 'speculate' and 'falsify'? To speculate means to take to be true on insufficient evidence, which is a fundamental part of paleontology. To falsify, in this context, means to lie, which is part of no science discipline at all. I trust that you will correct yourself now that I have made it clear that your characterization is incorrect.

As for "the fossil had nothing to (do with) whales", that is what the producers of the video intended that viewers would take away, but it is incorrect. Rodhocetus, the fossil in question, is still believed to be a precursor to whales by the pertinent scientists. Just not one that had flippers and a fluked tail.

I didn't falsify the fossil evidence, but it's nice to know you can offer a reason why people who believe your myth do have to lie about it.

If you are smart enough to understand that you didn't falsify the fossil evidence, then you are smart enough to recognize the deceptiveness of arguments which kick up a lot of doubt but have nothing of significance to back them up, provided you do not simply assume they are true because they happen to fit what you already believe.

He admitted falsifying the fossil evidence...along with later finding the fossils arms....which then led him to finally conclude that the fossil had nothing to whales.

HE DID NOT. The video clearly had an edit right when he tries to explain WHY he speculated about the fluke. Watch it. They intentionally cut that part to make him look bad. More than likely he had a good reason to speculate about the fluke, and then later data came to light which ruled that out. THAT'S SCIENCE.

He admitted falsifying the fossil evidence...along with later finding the fossils arms....which then led him to finally conclude that the fossil had nothing to whales.

HE DID NOT. The video clearly had an edit right when he tries to explain WHY he speculated about the fluke. Watch it. They intentionally cut that part to make him look bad. More than likely he had a good reason to speculate about the fluke, and then later data came to light which ruled that out. THAT'S SCIENCE.

If you watch that scene closely, you see that the narrator immediately starts talking as soon as Dr. Gingerich says the word 'speculation', even though Dr. Gingerich obviously continues to speak afterward. It's very easy to tell that the video's producer wasn't interested in allowing Dr. Gingerich to elaborate on his reasons for speculating. He simply wanted to give the 'obvious' impression that Dr. Gingerich was caught lying in order to fool viewers into thinking that the evidence for Rodhocetus being a whale predecessor was fake - the conclusion the video was obviously angling for from the very start.